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The history of this beautiful
colonial city, full of legends woven over more than 400 years,
is still alive in the memory of its inhabitants. To find its origin
it is necessary to go back in time to the 6th of December in 1534,
when the Spanish conquistadors founded the city with 204 settlers.
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note that additional info (prices, activities, etc) are found
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Before then, the present-day site of Quito was
inhabited by the Quitus, a tribe from the Quechua civilization
in a strip of land that stretched from what is now Cerro del Panecillo
in the south to Plaza de San Blas in the center. Called the Kingdom
of Quito in the Pre-Hispanic period, buildings in this ancient
city were made of carved stone and sun-dried brick. Later, Spanish
architects incorporated the same materials into their grandiose
constructions.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the city
adopted a monumental style with the construction, by the various
Catholic missions, of the impressive temples of San Francisco,
Santo Domingo, La Catedral and San Agustín. The main events
during this period took place in or around these temples, which
helped promote religiousness among the people.
The truth is that Quito's history starts long
before 1534, date of the Spanish foundation. Although pre-Hispanic
traces disappeared with the conquistadors' arrival, it has been
said that before the Europeans arrived, Rumiñahuy, an indigenous
warrior, set the city on fire and destroyed the temples of the
Incas who lived there. Other legends tell of such characters as
Atahualpa, last emperor of Tahuauntinsuyo, the Inca Kingdom, who
was executed in 1533 by his Spanish captors, despite the fact
that the Inca people paid a whole room full of gold and silver
for his return. Figuring large in more recent tales is Xavier
Chusig, a mestizo (someone of mixed Indian and Spanish parentage)
who changed his name to Eugenio de Santa Cruz y Espejo to avoid
discrimination and went on the found the first newspaper in the
city. There are still other stories of Manuela Sáenz, the
first woman to join the Bolivarian army and who became the chief
lieutenant of "the Liberator" Simón Bolívar.
For them, as for many others, Quito was the setting of their resistance
and struggle.
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